Review: Leah on the Offbeat

“Imagine going about your day knowing someone’s carrying you in their mind. That has to be the best part of being in love- the feeling of having a home in some else’s brain.”

Rating: 3/5 stars

Leah, Leah, Leah, where do we begin?

When I found out there was going to be a companion novel for Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda I was SO excited. But I quickly had my doubts when I found out this book was going to be about Leah. If you check out my review for Simon’s story earlier on my blog you’ll know that I thought Leah was a really shitty friend. I’ve definitely had my issues with her so I was nervous when I heard this but hoping that this would give Leah some more depth to her character and maybe even a little character growth while we were at it. However, that wasn’t really the case in this one.

Here are some issues I had with this one:

Leah’s story picks up towards the end of senior year when the whole school is buzzing with prom and the official start of “this is the last time we’ll all be together” that leads up to graduation. While it was super nice to see Leah back with the gang from Simon vs. it almost felt like the story was more focused on them and not Leah. I’m not sure if the point of this was to emphasize that Leah sometimes feels like an outsider to her friends or that everyone else’s lives are moving along perfectly without her but if it was I think it kind of failed to do so because it definitely made the story feel a little all over the place.

Leah is a very difficult girl to connect with. She is very much the type of person that when something goes wrong she shuts down and as Leah’s mom says “burn everything to the ground”. However, I felt like some the reasons she got angry were a little too juvenile. I’m aware that she’s a teenager in high school with insecurities and anxiety but I mean when something isn’t going your way that doesn’t give you the right to be hurtful to your loved ones. Pair that with the fact that I went to this already not liking her and it was much easier for me to roll my eyes every time she got pissed off rather than sympathize with her. Also, I’ve mentioned this in other reviews but I absolutely HATE when people are mean to their parents. That’s an instant dislike from me.

Leah saying her love interest couldn’t label herself as “a little bit bi” when clearly said love interest was confused on her sexuality. THAT’S A HARD NO. Just because Leah has her sexuality figured out does not give her the right to decide someone else’s label. And when she pulled that shitty line of “you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you either are or you aren’t” my eyes damn near blew out of my head. Needless to say, that left a VERY sour taste in my mouth afterwords.

Very minimal if any character development? I mean, Leah was just the worst at times to her friends and family but they just let it slide and continued to let her be a shitty person 90% of the time.

Things I’m on the fence about in this one:

The love interest in this story. I don’t know guys, sometimes I liked it, sometimes I wasn’t feeling it, other times I had big issues with who it was. I was definitely surprised though. NO SPOILERS!

The ending. It seemed like a perfectly happy end but I also felt it was a little unrealistic and VERY rushed. As I was nearing the end of the book I’m not gonna lie I was starting to sweat a little to see the end rapidly approaching but know that there should have been a lot more going on.

Things I loved in this one:

I was actually super happy to have the gang all back together again. I know I kind of complained about it in #1 on the dislike list BUT it was a lot of fun to see what was going on in the Creekwood High world, and what Simon and the gang would be up to once high school ends. I just wish it wasn’t so heavily focused on everyone else instead of Leah in the beginning.

Leah’s mom was an actual riot and I loved her. If my mom wasn’t so amazing I might actually really want Leah’s mom to be my mom.

Leah curses literally ALL THE TIME and it’s so nice to have a YA character with a vocabulary as extensive as mine 😉

Leah doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks about her size and loves herself and I seriously wish that was me.

The mentions of Harry Potter are always appreciated and Leah thinking she’s the worst kind of Slytherin because she’s in love with a Gryffindor is honestly the cutest.

Lastly, Leah standing up, pointing out, and fighting for Abby when Morgan made an inappropriate and ignorant racial comment. I loved that Leah refused to be a bystander in that situation.

Overall, I didn’t hate this one but in no way did I love this either. While Leah does have her flaws it was nice to see inside her head and get an idea on who she really is vs. the tough facade she puts on majority of the time. Unfortunately, I’m sad to see some of my favorites go, but I honestly don’t think Leah will really be that missed.

P.S – sorry for the amount of times I said Leah in this review, I know it’s a lot.